Filmed over a two-year period in the Tie Xi industrial district, one of the hardest-hit areas of Northeast China's--rust belt--West of Tracks explores the lives, loves, livelihoods, aspirations and frustrations of Chinese factory workers and their families. The film is a powerful commentary on the ways in which China's rush to modernity - reform and restructuring, factory bankruptcies and closures, the demolition and relocation of old neighbourhoods, and the complex and changing relationship between state-owned companies and their employees - has affected working class families in China.